Forget Using Plain Salt On Your Fries — Give Them A Flavor Overhaul With This Australian Seasoning

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Americans might know a thing or two about how to make good fries, but Australians are showing them up in the seasoning department. While a generous sprinkling of salt does go a long way in bringing the flavor out of potatoes, wait until you try fried spuds sprinkled in the best-kept secret from Down Under: chicken salt. With a name like chicken salt, one would automatically assume there's chicken in it, but the original product doesn't have a trace of meat. It doesn't explicitly taste like chicken either. Rather, when chicken salt was created in Australia by the brand Mitani in 1979, its intended use was for rotisserie chicken. 

It was quickly discovered that the blend of seasonings complemented far more foods than just chicken. Although several popular brands of chicken salt exist in Australia today, generally they all share similar ingredients. Mitani's has sea salt, rice flour, onion, garlic, paprika, and other undisclosed herbs and spices. McCormick's version has soy sauce powder in the mix, Anchor's blend includes beef fat and monosodium glutamate, and Masterfoods' has chicken flavor and celery seed. In Australia, this seasoning is commonly used on hot chips (thick-cut fries). You could certainly go to Australia and try them for yourself, but to save on airfare, you can easily recreate this beloved dish right in your own home.

You can find Mitani Classic Chicken Salt on Amazon, as well as other seasonings with similar ingredients from popular U.S. brands. Lawry's Seasoned Salt and Jada Spices Chicken Salt are also good options, as are any of the aforementioned brands. You can even mix up your blend at home.

To make Aussie-style chicken salt chips, you can follow any recipe for thick-cut fries from beginning to end, but instead of seasoning with regular salt once they're hot out of the fryer or oven, give them a generous sprinkling of chicken salt. You can alternatively use this method for any fries recipe, such as shoestring fries, sweet potato fries, starchy yuca fries, or frozen fries if you're pressed for time.

Although chicken salt and french fries are a match made in heaven, the same is true for many potato preparations, such as twice-baked potatoes, homemade air fryer potato chips, home fries, or potato salad. There's also no rule that says chicken salt is exclusively for potatoes. It's exceptional sprinkled on pretty much anything, from hot popcorn to dry rubs to roasted vegetables like cauliflower, carrots, or Brussels sprouts. You can even mix chicken salt into sour cream for a dip or mayonnaise for a sandwich spread.